Tag Archives: chicken

Chipotle… meets the Greek Gods and makes Greek babies. And by babies I mean food. And by Chipotle makes Greek food I mean a restaurant called Eons copied Chipotle’s healthy/fastfood model and made a Greek version of it. And it was deeeeeliicioussss!

EONS just opened up not too long ago in the land of the bros (Murray Hill). Like Chipotle, you choose a base (pita, rice, or salad), pick your protein (chicken, lamb, steak, pork, shrimp, salmon, or octopus – lots of options!), pick your sides (gigante beans, lentil salad, beet salad, etc.), add a spread (tzadziki, eggplant, hummus, garlic spread, etc.), then add as many salad-y things you want (cucumber, tomatoes, olives, etc.). Other than the seafood proteins, your meal will cost less than $10.

And your meal will look beautifully colorful like this. Here I ordered the brown rice base with slow roasted pork (very juicy and soft), EONS salad (which includes farro, cucumbers, tomatoes, mint, and parsley), beet salad, olives, and roasted baby eggplant spread. The meal was filling yet light, flavorful but not too salty. My body felt amazing after. All the ingredients are just very fresh and simple – something I’ve loved about Greek food but was never able to access it so easily and quickly as from EONS. Continue reading EONS: The Greek Chipotle→

A good while ago, before my trip to Iceland with LAW, N.T., and G.B., we decided we needed to prep for the upcoming intense hiking by doing some local hiking in … Prospect Park. So maybe it wasn’t so intense, but we pretended it was by taking a bunch of well-planned, well-cropped photos. Before we started our rigorous day in the park, we stopped by Shawarma Mediterranean Grill Flame House, which seemed to be a local favorite.

Cafe Mogador
101 St. Marks Place (between Ave A and 1st Ave)
New York, NY 10009

Cafe Mogador is the definition of the type of restaurant that I love. It has all the right components to keep me going back again and again. I’m almost sad that I just discovered it now because it is just that good. It satisfies my criteria of:

Having really great food (duh)

Having a speciality food (I hate places that do “all things” because it is impossible to do all things well) – Moroccan specifically (think tagines, cous cous, hummus, babaganoush…)

Having really reasonable prices (~$20 an entree and ~$10 an appetizer)

Having the right “mood” that pauses time and allows you to get lost in your food and conversation

The drinks are also strong. There’s really nothing not to like! It’s been around since 1983 so is pretty much an East Village landmark. A colleague of mine said his wife grew up going to Cafe Mogador as a little girl. I can’t imagine growing up in East Village but if it involved coming to Cafe Mogador every weekend, I’d be pretty happy about it.

LAW, B.A., B.P., H.W., and I came on a Friday night and definitely waited a good hour before we got a table. It was warm out (YES warm nights!) so it wasn’t so bad. We started with the Hummus Falafel Platter with green sauce ($12). The hummus is the best I’ve had in the city, not quite at Jordanian hummus level, but very, very, good. Not as machine-made smooth as store-bought… FRESH is how I would describe it. Fresh, light, and creamy. The falafel was also the kind I like: small, crisp on the outside, and fluffy on the inside. Hate it when falafels are over fried and have a thick crust and dense filling. Continue reading Cafe Mogador: NYC’s pioneer Moroccan restaurant→

I love Filipino food. I didn’t really discover this until Jeepney (sister to Maharlika) popped up in my neighborhood and I got to try some excellent Bicol Express (slow roasted pork shoulder in coconut milk). I haven’t blogged Jeepney yet because I never have my camera when I go, but I definitely need to soon. It embodies everything I know about Filipino culture: fun, familial, loud, and delicious. Ugly Kitchen is another Filipino restaurant in the East Village that my friend L.B. is involved with (and even worked in the kitchen!). It embodies the same kind of vibe as Jeepney’s but is a bit more affordable (mains are $10-$15 whereas at Jeepney where they are $15-$20).

L.B. welcomed me and Y.N. with dangerous fruity cocktails that the bartender threw together as a special for the night. The most dangerous part of the cocktail was that it didn’t taste dangerous…

Y.N. asked for the most popular dish on the menu: The Ugly Grilled Chicken ($14), which consists of two pieces of fire grilled chicken with a Korean fusion marinade and a side salad and rice. As simple as this sounds, it tasted pretty damn delicious. The chicken was flavorful, had a strong charred flavor, and was fairly tender. As the chicken cooled down, it got less tender (so eat quickly!), but was still tasty. Great home cookin’ for when you don’t want to take out the grill (or don’t have one because you live in NYC).

L.B. got the Sizzling Sisig ($13), which consists of spicy minced pork belly, liver, pork cheek, all sautéed together in onions and soy sauce with an egg on top. The waiter cuts the pieces up on the sizzling stone plate when the dish is brought over. The bite size pieces are fatty, and super fragrant. It’s a classic Filipino dish that I haven’t quite learned to love just yet but can see why it is Filipino comfort food. Continue reading Ugly Kitchen: where I had balut, a duck embryo. It was great.→

I’d like to start by giving myself a pat on the back for keeping my kitchen intact. A.W., L.C., and R.Y. got me an amazing pressure cooker for my birthday and until this meal, I had yet to really use it for anything other speed-cooking rice. This is because pressure cookers are scary and if handled incorrectly, can turn into bombs and explode (don’t google “pressure cooker” with “bomb”, just don’t do it).

I had a set of chicken thighs and legs in my freezer that I had to use and was so tired of my honey-soy glazed version that I make so often now so decided to experiment with something totally new. I was also feeling lazy and wanted something fast and easy. The internet told me that fast, easy, juicy and flavorful chicken is inseparable from the pressure cooker. Feeling extra brave, I decided to just go for it. I found this Thai Chicken recipe here and modified the recipe so I didn’t have to buy any new ingredients. Continue reading Homemade Spicy Thai Peanut Chicken… made speedily with a pressure cooker.→

Lacking scallions and enough garlic to make my usual honey soy glazed chicken thighs, I needed another recipe for the thighs and drumsticks I had in the fridge. Using my Google skillz, I found a recipe from The Kitchn that involved ingredients my very bare kitchen has (it’s the end of two weeks again where the roomies and I bike to Chinatown for our groceries).

I am not one for heavy lunches because I tend to go all out for dinner. I know it’s healthier to eat more for lunch and less for dinner … but I get sleepy at work and I think my dinner cooking or East Village options are better than what Midtown West has to offer. I also use lunch as an opportunity to get aaaall the good veggies my body craves. I refuse to have salads for dinner.

Buuuuut there are exceptions. Someone at work mentioned a hidden Ecuadorian place by our office and V.V. convinced me to go by essentially guilt tripping me and accusing me of missing out on a blogging opportunity. So here we go.

Checked out Mad for Chicken with M.B. and Y.N. this week. I was told by a number of people that Mad for Chicken is better than BonChon. BonChon is my favorite wing but loyalty to food is not a trait I find in myself. It’s a meritocracy here. The best wins in my book. We started with a corn on cob with parmesan and lime. Corn was naturally sweet, which tasted great with the saltiness from the cheese. Though, Mad for Chicken isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel here.

Sorry for being MIA again. I’ve been busy figuring out my life and have recently made some exciting changes! Also took advantage of some inbetween time to travel last week to Jordan. Jordanian blog post coming soon! After our long journey back, we had a couple hungry hours to kill before dinner so dropped by BaoHaus. I’ve reviewed this place twicebefore. It’s become a staple place to go to for a snack in my neighborhood. The little baos are the perfect after-school snack to tide you over before dinner. Of all the baos they have, my favorite is still the Birdhaus Bao ($3.50).

This little bun is stuffed with a piece of fried chicken with mayo, cilantro, crushed peanuts, and Taiwanese red sugar. The chicken used to always be fat and juicy but the last couple of times I’ve been, the chicken has been dry and overcooked. BaoHaus, don’t be losing your quality now that you’re the popular kid on the block.

In addition to increased prices all around (sad), BaoHaus has added a couple new menu items, including the Chairman on Rice (a $10.50 bowl of fatty flavorful pork belly over rice, something you can get in Chinatown for less than half that price) and the Coffin Bao, which is a whopping $7.50. It is a large fried man tou (Chinese steamed bun) stuffed with either fried chicken or fish and topped with condensed milk, crushed peanuts, Taiwanese red sugar, and cilantro. Continue reading BaoHaus’s New $7.50 Coffin Bao with Fried Fish is Delicious→

EN Japanese Brasserie is one of the first Japanese restaurants I had heard of when I moved to NYC. It is one of those places “everyone” has been to and deems to be a good place. I had never been because there have been so many cuter, smaller Japanese restaurants in NYC that always make the cut over EN. After a very long week at work, LAW and I finally made last minute reservations for a late dinner at EN. Our table wasn’t ready so I immediately got a drink to force myself to relax (is this how I know I’m getting old?). I had the Ginger Cocktail ($13), which was a mixture of homemade ginger ale, rice shochu “Shiro,” lime juice, and soda. The drink was very light, too light for my purposes, but pleasant. The homemade ginger ale was soothing and gentle. The lime juice added just a little acidity to the ginger and rice shochu. The drink was so light to begin with that they really needed to use one of those gigantic ice cubes because the mini crushed ice cubes they used diluted the drink too quickly.

We ordered the EN Kaiseki ($65), which is the smaller of the two prix fixe menus offered. Kaiseki is a traditional Japanese multi-course dinner. The meal is meant to be balanced and seasonal.

The kaiseki starts with an O-Banzai, a chef’s selection of three small Kyoto-style appetizers. We had the Hijiki (hijiki seaweed and soy bean simmered in shoyu), Zenmai Piri-Kara (royal fern sprouts in a spicy shichimi togarashi) and Kinoko Kiriboshi Daikon Ohitashi (assorted Japanese mushrooms & sun dried daikon radish with yuzu). All three were chilled, delicious, and balanced. The hijiki seaweed was sweet and tasted slightly of miso. Unlike the typical green, flat, and crunchy seaweed salad you find, hijiki is cylindrical and chewy (super QQ!). Delicious. The zenmai piri-kara was my least favorite only because I tend to not like mushy things – the royal fern sprouts were quite mushy. My favorite was the kinoko kiriboshi daikon ohitashi. The assorted Japanese mushrooms were bulbous little buds and tremendously fragrant. I had never had sun dried daikon before. It tastes less bitter than fresh daikon. The yuzu was so light, slightly sweet, and slightly citrusy. I can imagine the sauce tasting great with a nice fillet of fish…

The next course was the Chef’s Sashimi Selection. Bear in mind that photos are only of one portion. We didn’t have to share (more for us!). The chef’s selection wasn’t exactly much of a selection because it included just the basics: salmon, tuna, and yellowtail. I love the basics so it wasn’t a problem. The sashimi was overall decent quality but since I have been going to Kuraso often lately, very little can compare.

Saikyo Miso Marinated Grilled Black Cod was next. It tasted similar to the Robatayaone that I love but was a smaller fillet and less fatty. Flavor was perfect but was lacking the crispy fatty skin that I also love. Continue reading EN Japanese Brasserie→